When a man sleeps he is shut up within the narrow activities of his physical life. He lives, but he knows not the varied relations of his life to his surroundings, - therefore he knows not himself.
~ Rabindranath Tagore
Adharmenaidhate tabat, tato bhadrani pashyati, tatah sapatnan jayati, - samulastu vinashyati. In unrightousness they prosper, in it they find their good, through it they defeat their enemies, - but they perish at the root.
You can’t cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water.
I would have you come into the heart of the outer world and meet reality. Merely going on with your household duties, living your life in the world of household conventions and the drudgery of household tasks - you were not made for that! If we meet, and recognize each other, in the real world, then only will our love be true.
My husband would not give me an opportunity for worship. That was his greatness. They are cowards who claim absolute devotion from their wives as their right, that is a humiliation for both.
A day came when all the rebel in me knew itself beaten, and then my whole nature bowed down in humble resignation in the dust. And then I saw... I saw that he was as incomparable in beauty as he was in terror. I was saved, I was rescued.
The spirit of rejection finds its support in the consciousness of separateness, the spirit of acceptance finds its base in the consciousness of unity.
To thee, to thee, my fire! Thou hast been burning in my heart all these futile years. If my life were a piece of gold it would come out of its trial brighter, but it is a trodden turf of grass, and nothing remains of it but this handful of ashes.
A mind all logic is like a knife all blade. It makes the hand bleed that uses it.
The Taj Mahal rises above the banks of the river like a solitary tear suspended on the cheek of time.
My day is done, and I am like a boat drawn on the beach, listening to the dance-music of the tide in the evening.
These paper boats of mine are meant to dance on the ripples of hours, and not reach any destination.
Now that a full flood of music has swept over our country, let Nikhil practise his scales, while we rouse the land with our cracked voices[.]
The world by day is like European music; a flowing concourse of vast harmony, composed of concord and discord and many disconnected fragments. And the night world is our Indian music; one pure, deep and tender raga.
Spurious fame spreads from tongue to tongue like the fog of the early dawn before the sun rises.
We are in misery because we are creatures of self - the self that is unyielding and narrow, that reflects no light, that is blind to the infinite. Our self is loud with its own discordant clamour - it is not the tuned harp whose chords vibrate with the music of the eternal. Sighs of discontent and weariness of failure, idle regrets for the past and anxieties for the future are troubling our shallow hearts because we have not found our souls, and the self-revealing spirit has not been manifest within us. Hence our cry.
If only they let me, I'll go right into the dense forest where you can't find your way. And where the honey-sipping hummingbird rocks himself on the end of the thinnest branch, I will flower out as a champa.
He only may chastise who loves.
Men are cruel but man is kind.
The butterfly counts not months but moments and has time enough.
Time is a wealth of change but the clock in its parody makes it mere change and no wealth.
Man is worse than an animal when he is an animal.
Love does not claim possession, but gives freedom.
Love is an endless mystery, for it has nothing else to explain it.
Love is the only reality and it is not a mere sentiment. It is the ultimate truth that lies at the heart of creation.
Trees are the earth's endless effort to speak to the listening heaven.
Music fills the infinite between two souls.
Do not say, 'It is morning,' and dismiss it with a name of yesterday. See it for the first time as a newborn child that has no name.
Don't limit a child to your own learning, for he was born in another time.
He who is too busy doing good finds no time to be good.
Those who own much have much to fear.
Beauty is truth's smile when she beholds her own face in a perfect mirror.
Facts are many, but the truth is one.
To be outspoken is easy when you do not wait to speak the complete truth.
If you shut the door to all errors, truth will be shut out.
Love is not a mere impulse, it must contain truth, which is law.
Bigotry tries to keep truth safe in its hand with a grip that kills it.
Let us not pray to be sheltered from dangers but to be fearless when facing them.
We come nearest to the great when we are great in humility.
Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark.
